the blog of DC Drinking Liberally
The District is having a special election for Wards 3, 4, and 7 on May 1. Since I was researching it for tonight’s DC for Democracy meeting (please attend if you’re looking for a local grassroots political group), I thought I’d do one of my traditional posts listing the candidates in ballot order with links to their websites.
For the special election, there is no primary. Candidates from all the parties, along with independents, run on the same ballot, so the number of candidates can be overwhelming. This would seem to give Republicans their best shot at getting a ward seat in DC, but for some reason no Republicans got onto the ballot.
Residents of Ward 3 will vote for one school board member, residents of Ward 4 for school board and council, and Ward 7 for council. Residents of Wards 1, 2, 5, 6, and 8 won’t be voting this time. The deadline for registering to vote in the special election was April 2.
Candidates for the three positions are below. If I’m missing any candidates or links, let me know in the comments.
Those of you who are interested in politics and plan your schedule at the last minute are in luck. The evening of Wednesday, March 28, is chock-full of exciting events:
Earlier this month Salon ran an article about Dick Cheney’s visit to Afghanistan and couldn’t resist the “clever” headline “How Cheney bombed in Afghanistan”, despite the tastelessness of punning on an event that cost 23 people their lives.
Today Salon has a perfectly good article by Robert Polner on the weaknesses of one of the Republican presidential candidates, but again it’s marred by an unfortunate headline: “How to Swift-boat Rudy Giuliani”. Of course the article is not about Swift-boating and is not calling for Democrats to spread lies about Giuliani. This is made clear in the article itself (emphasis added):
In 2004, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth challenged the established image of John Kerry as a decorated, wounded Vietnam War hero. Democrats who had supported Kerry because they thought his military service made him electable were shocked to find a Republican-funded 527 group using spurious information and savage ads to create doubt in the electorate about the candidate’s war record. Should Rudy Giuliani be the Republican nominee in 2008, Democrats can create the same doubt about him, but without relying on distortion. They could instead use the truthful words of sympathetic subjects who credibly blame Giuliani for the loss of their loved ones on Sept. 11.
The important characteristic of the SBVT’s attacks on Kerry is that they were lies. By applying the term “Swift-boat” to ordinary political attacks on a candidate — attacks that the article itself specifically describes as truthful — Salon is legitimizing the SBVT’s lies and effectively condoning real Swift-boating as a tactic.
I don’t want to “Swift-boat” Giuliani, and neither does Polner, apparently — only the headline writer does. Let’s leave the Swift-boating to the Republicans.
Update (9:28pm): Victory! At some point today they changed the headline to “What an anti-Giuliani ad should say” (thanks to Paul in the comments for the heads-up).
Update (10:29pm): Here’s Mark Schone’s explanation from the comments on Salon:
I edited this piece and wrote the original headline. My intent in using the phrase “Swift-boat” in the headline was to underline the writer’s point about aiming an attack straight at what is thought to be Giuliani’s strength. That is what the GOP did to Kerry in 2004. Kerry was put on the defensive about the very portion of his resume that was thought to make him the most electable Democrat. As the piece points out, the difference between what was said about Kerry then and what could be said about Giuliani in 2008 is that there would be no need to distort Giuliani’s record in order to attack his strength. But I take seriously the comments of those who think that “Swift-boating” necessarily entails lying and distortion, so I’ve changed the headline.
I came home from my Christmas trip to Richmond to find four Christmas cards in my mailbox from politicians (okay, only one actually uses the word “Christmas”, but let’s be real). I’m still trying to figure out what signal some of them are trying to send.
The one from Barack Obama is pretty straightforward. Presumably it’s yet another indication that he’s planning to run for president.
Tomorrow, December 6, DC for Democracy has a speaker from the DNC at their monthly meeting in the back room at Ben’s Chili Bowl (RSVP). Sounds interesting:
Join us for our first MeetUp following the groundbreaking mid-term election results. To help us understand exactly how Democrats were so successful in taking back Congress and building a stronger progressive movement throughout the country, we’ll be joined by Parag Mehta, Director of Training for the Democratic National Committee. Parag was instrumental in helping implement the “50 State Strategy” around the country, and will give us an inside look at what happened and what the plans are to continue to build on the gains made this past year.
We’ll also be announcing plans for our upcoming holiday party, and soliciting volunteers to help design our annual winter strategy retreat. And of course there will be chili.
December 06, 2006
From: 07:00 PM until 08:30 PMAddress
Ben’s Chili Bowl 1213 U Street, N.W.
Contact: dcfordemocracy@gmail.com
DCfD is a good group to get involved with, and they’ll soon be determining their priorities for the new year. Stop by and find out more.
We’re excited.
We’ve already done one “Na na na na, hey hey hey” (for Santorum).
We’re All Sorts of Excited.
Did I say we’re excited? :D
Now let’s see what happens when the Democrats that have been sat on for four years and the Republicans who have been perilously close to committing seppuku over what ShrubCheneyCo has been up to have to confront what has gone before, and how to fix it. :D
I’m betting Cheney and the maniacs Bush has appointed do not go gently into that good night….
Did I mention that we’re excited. :D
I’d like to apologize for that whole gay marriage ban thing.
I’d also like to pre-emptively apologize for Allen not being ridden out of Washington on a rail. I hope I’m wrong about this one.
Even if there’s not much suspense about the outcome of the general election in the District (has a Democrat ever lost?), it’s still important to vote. Besides, you’ll need to vote for at least one non-Democrat in the at-large council race, and the school board and ANC races are nonpartisan.
If you’re registered to vote in DC, you can vote on November 7 for candidates for eight citywide offices, plus a councilmember for your ward if you live in Ward 1, 3, 5, or 6, plus a school board member if you live in Ward 5, 6, 7, or 8, plus an Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) member. So that’s nine to eleven decisions you need to make before Tuesday. If you don’t know your ward or ANC district, this form will tell you.
As I did for the Democratic primary, I’ve compiled a list of DC candidates with links to their websites. I’ve put the candidates in the order they appear on the ballot and marked the incumbents with an asterisk. If you know of any websites I’m missing, let me know in the comments.
Back in March, I wrote about Glenn Reynolds’ brilliant plan for Iraq. Now Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, in a post on Redstate, has embraced the same “strategy”:
We are criticized for our lack of an exit strategy in Iraq, but our exit strategy has been clear from day one: winning.
Like Reynolds, Hastert gives no indication of what winning would look like or how it could be accomplished — maybe staying the course for another decade or two and wishing really hard that things will improve?
William Kristol joined in on this week’s Fox News Sunday (at about 32:30 in this MP3):
I propose substituting for the three words “stay the course”, how about these three words: “win the war.” Win the war. That’s what Bush should be for. That’s what the Republicans should be for.
And yesterday Bush himself ventured a variation on the theme, with a little extra pre-election nastiness:
However they put it, the Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses.
That’s what’s at stake in this election. The Democrat goal is to get out of Iraq. The Republican goal is to win in Iraq.
Fortunately he followed this with “I’m not saying these Democrats are unpatriotic.” Wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.
There are 18 days left until the election, and lots of opportunities to help the Democrats retake the House and the Senate and bring a bit of sanity to government. Things are looking good now, but we can’t afford to be complacent. I don’t want to be sitting around after the election goes badly, wishing I’d done more.
Jim Webb’s campaign to unseat Virginia’s Sen. George Allen is one of the critical races, and Generation Webb (an outreach campaign for young voters) has plenty of Metro-accessible events in the next days and weeks, starting tonight:
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